Catching People
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, Year C
Artwork: “Fishers of Men II” by Cynthia McClean
I have to confess, when I read the phrase “catching people” in the Gospel lesson from Luke, it did not carry the same meaning it once held. Last week, Christianity Today published an article describing the first reported ICE raid on a place of worship. The longstanding tradition of “sanctuary” spaces in immigration policy and enforcement has been abruptly dismantled, and the American hermeneutic seems to bring a different, perverse interpretation of “catching people.” Here is a praxis that catches in order to dehumanize, intimidate, and ultimately separate people from communities they know and love, and I am frankly uninterested in making distinctions based on legality and border politics. It is a sick juxtaposition to the Gospel intention, and I cannot ignore the opposing images that a single phrase generates.
The crowd presses in on Jesus at the shore “to hear the word of God,” and I am envious of their eagerness. I wonder how eager folks are to hear the word of God in our context. When the witness of the church is adulterated with nationalistic ideologies and the politics of the Gospel are mutated by a capitalist political economy, is it any wonder that our neighbors don’t find the church and its “word” at all interesting or trustworthy?
I am fortunate to pastor a small congregation in Northeast Tennessee, and, despite the abundant examples of milquetoast Christianity, I am regularly humbled by the witness of those who come to our parish eager to have someone speak the word of God in a way that actually proclaims the Good News of mercy, kindness, peace, justice, and unconditional hospitality. So, despite my previous cynicism, there are folks who continue to desire the Good News, the Word of God, if only the church would speak this word and bear witness to its determinative reality. As St. Oscar Romero once said,
The church has to proclaim the Good News to the poor. Those who, in this-worldly terms, have heard bad news, and who have lived out even worse realities, are now listening through the church to the word of Jesus: “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” “Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.″ And hence they also have a Good News to proclaim to the rich: that they, too, become poor in order to share the benefits of the Kingdom with the poor.
The “poor” in our context are certainly the financially impoverished and destitute; there is no denying that material reality, and it is an expanding reality. But it is also those who are seeing their dignity disappearing along with their entitlements, their legal status, their access to essential care, and their belonging in their communities. How does the church bear witness to the dignity of every human being in such a context, with so much power working against its potential for witness?
The water of Gennesaret is a powerful symbol, as Jesus enters the boat to proclaim the word of God to the desirous crowd. The baptismal waters define the identity and belonging of the church, and, in an unmentioned fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s words, Jesus leads the people to the waters to hear the word of God:
“Hear, everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Now you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.”
Luke does not give us the words of Jesus in this teaching, but I can imagine this would be an appropriate invitation - the Word of God for the people of God. Buying without money or price, quenching thirst in the waters of life, and gathering the nations together around this transformative water.
The church can offer an opposing, alternative community to those who are being “caught” by the rulers of this world. From the deep waters of our baptismal identity, we have an abundance of room for those who seek belonging, welcome, shelter, kindness, and care. It is past time for the church to show the Truth it proclaims. As one of my teachers has said, it is not enough to say, “‘God is good all the time;’ it must be shown.”
We are called to draw people into this borderless communion where true humanity is possible through the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. If we gather together around the table to be transformed by his Body and Blood, then we cannot see the world except through our sacramental community. If bread and wine can be Body and Blood, and if water can bring about new birth, then every member of creation bears the infinite grace of the New Creation. If the work of discipleship is to “catch people,” then it is not for their sake alone, but for ours also. We who need infinite grace infinitely cannot imagine an abundant life without the gift of every neighbor, every singular member of creation, bursting the seams of our communion with God and one another.